Australian tennis nice Todd Woodbridge fears the age-old Davis Cup might turn out to be a factor of the previous if the game’s leaders do not get their act collectively.
First performed greater than a century in the past in 1900, the finals of the group stage of the celebrated males’s staff occasion is being staged within the UK this week.
Australia will conclude its first match in opposition to the Andy Murray-led Great Britain outfit in Manchester on Thursday morning (AEST).
But Woodbridge is predicting a tragic finish to the well-known occasion until modifications aren’t made to the format after Spanish soccer nice Gerard Pique’s Kosmos Group presided over a radical shake-up.
As nicely as eradicating home-and-away ties in favour of an end-of-season World Cup-style climax, organisers ended the standard best-of-five-sets matches for extra cut-throat first-to-two-sets affairs.
The Kosmos Group’s takeover of the Davis Cup in 2019 was price a reported Sterling 2.5 billion ($A4.87 billion) and had been set to run for 25 years however waning curiosity put paid to the deal.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is again working the occasion however has already drawn criticism from tennis greats, together with three-time grand slam champion Stan Wawrinka.
“Thank you Gerard Pique and ITF! France vs. Switzerland in Manchester,” Wawrinka tweeted with an angry-face emoji displaying the stands largely empty.
Woodbridge, a twin Davis Cup winner and 16-times grand slam doubles champion, reposted Wawrinka’s tweet together with his personal proposal to tennis chiefs.
“Until there is change of leadership @ITFTennis and @DavisCup the event will become a thing of the past,” he posted.
“So sad to see what was once a magnificent competition reduced to this.”
Despite the untimely finish to the Kosmos connection, the format will stay for 2023 however modifications are anticipated for subsequent yr’s occasion.
“The ITF can confirm that its partnership with Kosmos Tennis for Davis Cup is ending in its fifth year,” an announcement from the governing physique learn.
Woodbridge and present captain Lleyton Hewitt have been instrumental in guiding Australia to their twenty eighth and most up-to-date Davis Cup title in 2003.
Two many years on and Hewitt is skippering an Australian staff of Alex de Minaur, Max Purcell, Alexei Popyrin, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Jordan Thompson which hopes to go one higher than final yr’s finals defeat to Canada.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
